Ecuador Day 4

Thursday Dec. 8th

Today our lawyer, Priscilla, and our translator, Carmen came to our apartment at 8:45 to pick us up to go to the orphanage.  Carmen's friend, John, an american retiree also came with us as he wanted to discuss with the orphanage director about dressing up as "Papa Noel" (Santa Klaus) and bringing gifts and goodies to the orphanage.

It was about a 20 minute drive to the orphanage.  All along we had been very excited, but as we neared the orphanage, I became very nervous...what if she doesn't recognize us? what if she doesn't like us? what if she is scared of us?  We pulled up to the place and Priscilla got out and rang the bell for them to open the gate for us.  We entered into the place and went into a large room with a table and chairs and they also had a very large picture/painting of Jesus with children with different disabilities.

The director, Jackie, the social worker Laura, and the rest of us gathered around the table.  They told us that they have been preparing Sister with the book we sent and she is very ready and excited to meet us.   As she was getting ready this morning she was singing Mama, Mama, Papa, Papa. They said she is doing very well in preschool and is loved by her typical peers and her teacher. She has homework that is sent home each day and the volunteers that help at the orphanage speak English and her homework is also in English.  She understands both English and Spanish.  They asked if we wanted to return to our apartment for lunch or we could stay and eat with Sister.  We of course said we would like to stay.  They were worried that we wouldn't like their food....and I honestly could care less if I had to starve.  We were staying.  Zac felt the same way.

At the end of our meeting they wanted a picture of us with them.  They laughed and joked about how tall Zac was.  I'm guessing he is about 2 feet taller than the workers there...it was comical.  They asked us if we had anymore questions and we just wanted to know when we could see her.  Finally just before 10AM they said it was time!

So we gathered our things and I instructed Priscilla on the video camera and John got instructions on the camera.  We went up the stairs to Sisters groupa.  The orphanage is organized into different groupa's of 8 children.  Each groupa has a "mother".  Sisters groupa was Casa Aguilla.  We rounded the corner and could hear Sisters "mother" saying, it's your mama y papa!....As we entered the room Sister gasped and said oooooooo! and promptly RAN into my arms.  I had pulled out her doll out of my backpack thinking I would need to coax her to me...yeah...I had to practically throw those things down as she was running to me. Yes, I was a sobbing/laughing/relieved mess. God is so good.

The room was full of most of the volunteers from the orphanage as well as some of the other children from her groupa...the others were still at preschool.  They had Sister dressed in a pink dress and white tights with some glittery shoes.  Her hair had braids and she was beautiful.  She must have taken a spill days prior, because she had a pretty good scrape by her eye and on her cheek. We later realized the dress was a size 24 months, as well as the tights and the shoes were a size 5.

I pointed to Zac and said Papa.....she was unsure and ran back to her "mother" Theresa.  She wanted to show the doll to Theresa.  She was very happy with it...Theresa carried her back over to us and she went to Zac and gave him a big hug.  I got out the bubbles and she came over and sat in my lap.  It didn't take long until she was blowing bubbles herself and having both Zac and I blow bubbles for her.  She kept saying "ma" for more.  I showed her the sign for more and it wasn't long and she was also signing more! (later on they explained that they tried to show her the Signing Times video we sent but since she wasn't used to watching TV she didn't show interest)

After the bubbles started to get a bit messy, I brought out the magna doodle, which she also loved.  She drew on that for a while and then Theresa wanted to tell us some things about her.  I felt so bad for Theresa as she was fighting back tears much of the time.  She has cared for Sister since she was 2 days old! What an amazing blessing she has been to our daughter.

The social worker came over and asked if we wanted to take a tour of the facility...so we went and Sister wouldn't leave my arms.  She had a firm grip around my neck and wasn't going anywhere. So very precious.  They showed us Sisters room...she was still sleeping in a crib with 3 other kids in a small room.  They showed us around to each of the different casa's.  They also had a room for therapies where Physical, Speech, and Occupational therapists come to work with the children (and adults with disabilities).

After the tour Priscilla, John, and Carmen left as we felt comfortable enough there without them...even with little Spanish I knew...we were both picking it up quickly.  Laura, the orphanage social worker, knew very little English...so we were teaching her and she was teaching us.

We took Sister down to the area where there is a small swingset but she didn't want to go on the swing...she just wanted to sit with Zac and I.  She would go and find a bench and then tap the space on each side of her for us to come sit.  If only one of us sat down, she would tap the empty space harder and point to us and then point to the seat.  Very cute!  We ended up sitting for while playing with her doll and magna doodle under this tent like area they had set up but was more of a tarp.  She was very intrigued with what else was in the backpack. =)

Laura came over and let us know she was going to open the therapy room if we wanted to go in there an play...so we went in and Sister went to the table with some puzzles to play.  She seemed to enjoy the puzzles the most...basic wood puzzles...can't wait to show her Addie's puzzles at home that make the noises of the animals!  After she seem to bore of being in there Zac pulled out his phone...it doesn't work here...but the apps still do and she was very intrigued with touching the screen and having it react.  We showed her some videos of Addie and she kept kissing the phone. Melted our hearts!

At this point, she was still unsure of Zac as she is not used to male caretakers.  We decided to go back out into the common area and blow some bubbles...it was then that she started to show more interest in Zac...we soon realized she was buttering him up to get his phone out again.  And once he did...she became more comfortable with him and would touch his face a lot.  She was also very intrigued by his arm hair...which was very funny.

Laura came over and let us know that lunch was ready.  We sat at a small table with Sister and Theresa first served us a creamed soup of some sort...I think it was creamed peas...which Sister inhaled and Zac and I didn't really care for that. Then we had rice, a type of large corn...can't remember what it's called..it was mixed with cabbage and carrotts...and some form of meat...I think beef, but really not sure..Sister inhaled all of her food.  I have never seen a child eat so quickly and so much.  Later on we learned..that was a special meal...it's usually not that good. =(  We finished the meal with some sort of yogurt type/juice smoothie.

Sister told me she had to "peesh"..go to the potty...so away we went and she did both!  I was very impressed.  She even took down her own underpants!  Theresa also came in and asked me to brush Sisters teeth and she tolerated that well!  But man oh man can she be ornery!  She would just do things like splash the water at me or try to run away without her underpants on.

At that time they said we could walk to a nearby park with Laura.  So they wanted me to put a different outfit on to do so.  This time they handed me a pair of 12 month pants...which were more like capris and an 18 month onsie with size 4.5 tennis shoes.  I could hardly get the onsie snapped...but didn't want to offend anyone so away we went with a little girl with one major wedgie! And I had to cram her poor toes into the shoes as they were very small as well...we later learned she is a size 6 shoe..

The walk to the park wasn't far and we saw a cow hanging out nearby.  Sister was very interested in the cow and kept saying moo! moo! The sun was out and very bright...Zac ended up getting a nice lil sunburn...they also gave us a hat for Sister which was just too cute.  We walked to the different play areas but because the sun was so bright the slides and things were metal and way to hot to go on.  Sister really didn't seem to care as she was mostly content just pointing things out to us and holding our hand...not leaving our sides.  She took turns going back and forth between Zac and I...but was still definitely favoring me.  We ended up sitting on the grass under the shade of a tree for awhile and talking.  Sister sat with Zac and drew on the magna doodle while I took some pictures and video of our surroundings.

We walked back and the children that had been at preschool had returned and were very excited to see Sister.  One little girl came over and asked us, in Spanish, if we were Sisters mama y papa...and we said yes. I later found out she is a good friend of Sisters and is not taking the news of Sister having a family very well. =(  An older boy came over and was playing with Zac...he was absolutely adorable...seven years old I believe...his house mate had recently been adopted and is now kind of lonely...I pray his mom and dad find him soon.  He also was very interested and asked if we were Sisters mom and dad....when we said yes, he went and was talking to Jackie, the director and I could somewhat make out that she was explaining to him family.  So sad.

A while later it began to rain quite hard....a nice thunderstorm and Laura and Jackie came over and asked if we were tired and if we'd want to take a siesta with Sister.  I could see that they were preparing a room for us so we agreed and went in.  This was bout 3:30 and our translator Carmen and her friend John were returning at 5:00 to take us back to the apartment.  Sister finally settled in and fell asleep at about 4:15.  It was so adorable as she feel asleep nestled in the crook of Zac's arms and both Sister and Zac were snoring! I of course couldn't sleep so I got up and found a English/Spanish dictionary and continued to work on my spanish.  At 5:00 Carmen and John arrived and Laura came in to let us know they were here.  Zac and Sister were still sound asleep so I went in to wake them...Sister was having a very hard time waking up so I carried her out to the living room area in the apartment type space we were in.  She kept dosing off and then I realized she was peeing....a lot.  (she normally sleeps in a pull up but we didn't put one on her for our siesta) So I took her into the bathroom and got her undressed and took my pants off as well as I was also soaked.  Laura came in and brought a towel and a sheet for me to wrap up in and took my pants to wash them for me...she insisted as I was just going to towel them off...but I guess they didn't like that...

I got dry clothes on Sister...this time some 2T jeans and a 2T top....Carmen and John came into the area we were and Laura introduced us to the Psychologist that has been working with Sister also on preparing her for our arrival.  She explained many basic things of how to care for Sister when she has temper tantrums, that we have to establish boundaries,etc...most things very similar to Addie.

They then explained that they felt that Sister was bonding well with us and they were considering letting her come home with us that night!  Laura explained (through Carmen) that they would like us to act like we were leaving to see how Sister would react. If she became sad, they wanted us to take her with us and if she didn't seem to mind, she would stay the night at the orphanage.  We took her back to her Casa and when we opened the door she saw Theresa and ran over to her.  Two of her friends that live in her casa also yelled her name and were very excited to see her.  It was then that I knew it was best she stay.  She wasn't ready.  It was sad..sad to know that we were taking her away from the only "mother" she's known as well as her "sister's and brother's" she's been raised with...but also sad that she didn't seem too upset we were leaving.

Laura explained she'd like us to come back to the orphanage at 10am tomorrow (friday) and that we would go out into the city to do things with Sister.  We left with Carmen and John.  John is seriously a gift from God as he offered to take us anywhere we needed to go.  It was now getting dark and we knew we needed to get back to our apartment, but it was also becoming obvious that we needed to get a cell phone if we needed to call Carmen or Priscilla or our agency rep, Maria Jose.  So John graciously took us to the mall to get some groceries as well as to the phone place to get a phone..very cheap...$39 for a cell phone and $5 for 30 minutes of time...

We headed home and were exhausted...we Skyped with family and headed to bed.